Archive for July, 2014

Last Friday Rosa decided she would like to wear knickers instead of a nappy. I had been planning to start potty training the very next day, so it was very good timing.

We started off with her wearing knickers and she was just weeing on the carpet every time. I think the sensation of there being ‘something there’ was confusing for her so we took the knickers off. As soon as we did that every single wee has been on the potty! Yay!

Today I decided to put the knickers back on. This time, she is visiting the potty at the right time, but weeing through the knickers. It is tricky for her to pull them down herself so we shall work on that.

I think she is doing really well. Much easier than Charlie anyway. It took me a week just to get him to wee on command. Rosa was doing that within a couple of hours.

Hard work and lots of washing….all the poos have been anywhere but the potty.

I had my 27 week midwife appointment today. Everything was good. My BP is very low. She asked me if I felt dizzy and I do, all the time. Bending down repeatedly is a no no and I often send Stacy upstairs to fetch me things lol She asked about baby’s movements. This baby has never been much of a mover. I was told I had an anterior placenta and I put down lack of movement to that. I do feel her, but it isn’t that frequent. My midwife was concerned enough to try and book me a scan, but the hospital refused to do one. She urged me to turn up for at least a trace if I have any concerns about movement. It’s a tricky one, as this has been normal for her, and any reduction in movement would probably mean not feeling her for 12 hours or more. I’ll just monitor it for a while. To prove me wrong, she has had quite an active day today and I have felt her much more than normal 🙂

Charlie has been asking lots of questions recently about his body, my body and how things all work. He was curious where his food went once he had eaten it, where poo came from, where his wee came from, what the purpose of breathing in and out was, and where the air went once inside. He can now explain to people about the stomach and then how the waste is made into poo and wee, what lungs are etc…

He asked me the other day

Charlie: where does dirt come from?

Me: from the ground

Charlie: so how does it get into my mouth then?

Me: It doesn’t?!? Why would you have dirt in your mouth??

Charlie: because you tell me my teeth are dirty, and that I have to clean them.

I like his train of thought 😀

He has also been asking how the baby has got into my tummy. I went with:

‘Mummy’s have eggs inside them, and you put a seed inside the Mummy and they join together and then grow into a baby.’

Of course we have chickens and he thinks I have chicken sized eggs inside me now. He was also explaining how babies were made to my Mum the other day, and he said that Mummy swallowed a seed which found the egg and made her baby. I said ‘oh no, I didn’t swallow the seed’ and he said ‘oh so how does the seed get inside then?’ and I was like ‘ummmm yeah I swallowed it!’

I love all his questions. Some of them are quite hard to answer though. A recent one was:

‘Why is Alfie?’ Alfie is our cat. I thought he might mean what is Alfie, or who is Alfie? But no, it was why….and that was hard to answer lol

Over the last week or so I have been finding these tiny little mite like creatures in our living room. I couldn’t work out what they were or where they were coming from…

Today Charlie went into the chicken coop to collect the eggs. When he came out he was CRAWLING with mites. They were all over his arms and clothes and his hair was also full of them.

I had a bit of a freak out, catching them and killing them. It all panicked Charlie a bit as well.

Stacy went into the coop and found a massive infestation of chicken mites. I went mental. It was the last straw in the chicken saga and I have demanded they go. They are putting a strain on our relationship. They are noisy, they are stinky and now they have mite infested my house!

She spent all evening cleaning them out, and mite powdering the house and birds. The infestation is probably under control now, but I am done with chickens. She is upset, and I feel bad, but they stress me out and I just can’t enjoy my garden.

She will need to find a new project, and I will support whatever it is she fancies. Last year she had a brilliant veg patch and this year it is pretty lack lustre due to the chicken distraction. She can have a nice large patch of the garden…anything…anything but chickens!

We have asked some chicken friends if they would like our 2 remaining birds, if not, we shall carefully re-home them in pet like homes.

So this was what the dentist said to me as I was leaving the consulting room with tears in my eyes.

Last night I had to attend a work meeting and left Stacy at home with the children. She rang me in the middle of the meeting and I knew it meant something was wrong with the children, or she wouldn’t ring.

She told me Rosa had fallen against the door and had chipped her tooth. I was gutted to hear such a thing had happened, but she told me she was otherwise fine which I was glad of.

When I got home I observed the damage. I was horrified. I am not ashamed to admit, that cosmetically, it sucks.

I felt sure the dentist could ‘do something’ like fill it in and make it look normal.

I booked her an appt for today and in we went. He checked the tooth was still healthy, and he thinks that it is. He said it would smooth off with time and that he wouldn’t even file it. I asked him to do something about the way it looked and he said it would require too much co-operation from the child to do. So I asked about sedation. He raised his eyebrows and said to me,

‘you want to sedate your child, with all the risks involved with that, purely for a cosmetic reason?’

and yes, I felt like a shite mother at that point. I was only asking!

I then insisted he did something about the very sharp point of the tooth. He didn’t want to, but I was so worried about it digging into her lip. He said I would have to hold her down. I said fine! So I laid back with her on my chest, and held down her arms and her head. It took him 30 seconds at the most, and yes she was a bit upset, but she was fine afterwards and they gave her stickers which she loved. She then smiled at him and said goodbye.

I am glad I did insist on that, because it could have taken quite a while for that sharpness to lessen.

As the dentist so ‘wisely’ pointed out, ‘worse things can happen’. Yes thank you for that.

I have been an awful blogger of late!
Yesterday we had V day for Twinkle, 24 weeks! Whoop. We have decided on a name and are calling her by it. A bump photo from last week at 23 weeks

Charlie hasn’t had any more episodes since the one last week thank goodness. Hopefully it was a one off!
We re-homed one of our chickens, Bertha. She had got very very noisy for some reason, and we live in close proximity to several other houses and it was stressing me out. No one had complained…but I knew if I were them, it would be annoying me! She was squawking early in the morning and throughout the day. We made the decision to re-home her and advertised her for free on Sat morning. Within 2 hours of the advert going out, she was collected and gone 😦 It’s a bit gutting as she was our best layer as well.
We had an utterly crap camping weekend last week. It rained most of the time and was cold! The children struggled to go to sleep in the very light tent with us so close so it was very late bedtimes followed by 5.30am wake ups once it was light. This equalled very tired children who did nothing but fight and cry, taking it in turns, or both at the same time. Charlie was even whinging at one point whilst I was buying him an ice-cream! It was miserable. We shall go camping again later in the summer, and with better weather, and more company I am hoping it goes better next time!!
We did have a night day out by the seaside though, and it didn’t rain until we were headed home, so that is a positive to take from the weekend 🙂

Charlie decided this was a bit ‘tame’ and so livened it up a bit!

Rosa has become a bit naughty recently! I remember Charlie doing something similar, imaginative mischief. Rosa and Charlie were out playing in the garden, when I suddenly felt a jet of water hit the back of my neck! Rosa had sprayed the hosepipe INTO THE LIVING ROOM! Suffice to say, I was mad lol
The last week or so, Rosa has decided not to go straight to sleep for some reason. She isn’t crying or causing a fuss, but she is getting up to lots of mischief! She is going into other rooms upstairs and doing ‘stuff’ like emptying drawers, or squeezing out whole bottles of shampoo, playing with ear buds etc…. we keep going up and putting her back to bed, but she just gets up again and carries on with the mischief.
Stacy has fitted a stair-gate on her room. At first I said no! But actually it is for her own safety as she could hurt herself up there on her own unsupervised.
I doubt it will distress her. I think she will just keep the activities to her own room which is pretty safe.
Stacy got a promotion at work! It is a temp thing, and will end next March, but until then we have extra money each month which is really handy right now. She was also accepted onto a leadership scheme which will hopefully progress her career further. All exciting stuff….but it has meant that our maternity plans have had to change slightly. She is still going to have some time off, but more likely to be 4 months instead of 6.

We have had some great evening walks after Stacy gets home from walk in the warm summery weather.

We have entered an era of collaboration. Rosa was asking for her dummy and I said no and put it up high where she couldn’t reach it. A few minutes later I heard Charlie say to Rosa,
‘Stay in there, don’t come out or Mummy will notice’
Went to investigate and found Rosa with her dummy in! Charlie had got it down for her. Naughty and sweet all at the same time.

Charlie had an episode of some sort this morning, and it was very scary for me. He had a splinter in his finger which I removed with a needle. He was fine about it, but requested a plaster.

I took him upstairs and washed the area the splinter has been…and then I put some antiseptic cream on it, I turned to get a plaster out of the first aid box and I heard Charlie say ‘hurry up Mummy’ and when I turned around he fell forwards, hitting his head against the door!

I scooped him up but he was stiff as a board. His neck was arched right backwards and he appeared not to be able to move it, his arms and legs were also very very stiff. His face was as white as a ghost and his eyes rolled backwards. He was concious and crying throughout…but it took a good minute or so for the stiffness to subside.

I had no idea what was going on, or how it would end. After he calmed down, he told me his head was hurting.

I rang Stacy at work and left a frantic message on her answer machine…I rang my local surgery who told me to bring him down straight away, which I did.

The doctor listened to his heart and checked him over. He asked me if there was a family history of epilepsy, which there is. My sister suffered as a child and 2 of my dads sisters also suffered as children. He asked about his father and I said not to my knowledge.

He said they let children have one fit before worrying about it, and that it may have been a vaso..something or other…but as he seemed fine just to carry on as normal, which is what we are doing. He has gone to nursery this afternoon (and is there now).

Fingers crossed it was a one off weird thing that doesn’t happen again.